A Monster, A Siren, A Savior
by OurNightSpinner
Summary: A few weeks after the Giant War, Annabeth dies. Percy is miserable. But this isn't your typical "Annabeth dies, Percy's sad" story. A new camper with a mysterious past appears. Can she help a heartbroken Percy? Will Percy discover what it is that she's hiding? The story is not as lame as the summary, I promise. Please be nice, as this is my first fanfiction.
1. One Hundred Annabeths

Ren .

Annabeth. Annabeth. Annabeth.

The beach was full of that name, written into the sand in every size, and every font. Sometimes it was written in perfect cursive, other times in little kid capitals. Once, it was even in Ancient Greek. All were etched deeply, gashes in the sand's skin. _Annabeth_, ANNABETH, Ανναμπεθ.

It made me vaguely sad, all of those Annabeths, lying across the empty waterfront. I don't know who bothered to write them all out there, or why. I don't know who Annabeth is, or was. It's just that she's out there. All alone, on this big old empty beach, with only herself for company. I don't know.

There should be half bloods out here, playing, hanging out, throwing sand at each other, swimming, just generally messing around. But there aren't. Maybe they're afraid to trample the Annabeths. It's beautiful, this beach, I think, with all the water, and the sand, and the fading sunlight. It's hard for me to say, for two reasons. One, I am so unused to the world, to all of the beautiful things. I find grass stains beautiful, and dew drops, and faces, and fallen tree branches, and buttons. I've been told told these things are just "normal" not "beautiful." They say only special things are beautiful, like models, and sunsets. I don't think so. I don't see the difference. To me, it's all beautiful. Reason number two is that this scares me. The ocean, I mean, and remembering that I'm still on an island. Islands scare me. It is harder to see beauty when you're scared.

I came out here to try to get over that fear, and also just to be alone. Alone is good. There are so many demigods, doing so many different things all of the time. Don't get me wrong, I like the demigods, and I even like all of the craziness; it's fun. But sometimes the whole thing gets overwhelming, and I have to go find somewhere without people. This is the first time I've come down here. I doubt that I'll do it again.

The conch horn sounds over Camp Half-Blood, signaling time for dinner. Turning away from the beach, from the endless Annabeths, I jog up to the dining pavilion and sit down at the Hecate table. Technically I was never "claimed" by the goddess, with the glowing symbol and all. But I know that she is my mother. When I came to camp, I had explained my situation to Chiron, and he agreed to let me stay in the Hecate cabin, given the heroes would ask questions if I remained unclaimed for too long. My cabin mates didn't ask too many questions, thank the gods, and now I'm just a regular camper.

Sitting down at the table next to me was Miranda, the head counselor for the Hecate Cabin. **(AN I have no idea who the head counselor is, I just made that up.) **I think she probably feels responsible to be my friend, given I have yet to make any others. Not that I'm a terrible person or anything. It's just that I don't even want friends that much, and I don't know how to make them anyway. Miranda's presence would help me tonight though, since she's been at camp for awhile and I really wanted to ask her a question. After sacrificing half of my cheese quesadilla to Hecate, (I'm a vegetarian), I decided it would be a good time to ask. Gods, this was difficult for me.

"So...um… Miranda, I walked down towards the beach today and I sort of um… saw the name Annabeth written in the sand… a lot… and I feel stupid for asking but… why? I'm just curious. And who is she? And… um… sorry?"

I felt the need to apologize, because halfway through my question Miranda got this very sad look on her face, and a few of the conversations around us died down. This surprised me, given I don't think I said something rude, and I had asked very very quietly.

"Don't apologize, Ren" Miranda told me softly. It took me a second to figure out what the word "Ren" meant. Then I remembered. It's the name, the person-label I go by. Like Miranda is Miranda, and Annabeth is Annabeth. I know most other people's person-labels. The only one I really forget is my own. I've never had one before. I'm not sure if I deserve it.

"It's fine," my half sister continued. "Annabeth is just a… sad topic right now. Here, come with me."

We both walked to the back corner of the pavilion, and sat down on the stone steps.

"So… Annabeth," Miranda began to explain. "She used to be such a good story around here. We all admired her so much. We all still do. She came to Camp around age seven, after running from home. She was an Athena kid. She and Percy Jackson… you know who he is right?"

Yes, I nodded. I had learned that nodding means yes. I knew who Percy Jackson was. He was the one everyone whispered about, the savior of Olympus. Sat alone at the Poseidon table. Wasn't seen much outside of his cabin. Was usually dragged out of his Cabin for meals by Piper, or Jason, or Nico, or Leo, or Grover, or by Hazel, or Frank, when the Romans visited. Sometimes Thalia, when the Hunters came. He was the one with the unruly black hair. The one that Travis and Connor didn't seem to prank. The one who Clarisse looked at sadly, who everyone looked at sadly. The one who Praetor Reyna talked to in whispers. The one who Chiron visited. The one who occasionally tried to fake smile when people looked at him, only for it all to crumble. The one who was good with his sword, who everyone said was a hero. The one with all of the scars. The one who Mr. D called by the right name a few times, although he still did say Peter Johnson, sometimes Yes, I knew who Percy Jackson was. I pay attention to people. Especially people who scream in their cabins at night. Especially those people.

"Well," Miranda continued, "she and Percy Jackson went on all of these quests, and went from rivals to best friends, and eventually won the second war against the Titans together. She was super smart, wanted to become an architect. Anyway, Percy turned down immortality for her. They ended up as boyfriend and girlfriend. They loved each other. Then Percy was kidnapped by Hera and sent to the Roman camp for months and months. Annabeth finally found him, and they discovered they were part of a new prophecy, the prophecy of seven, or the second Great Prophecy. Gaea, the Earth primordial, was rising along with her giant army. Annabeth went on this solo quest and retrieved the Athena Parthenos, and fell into Tartarus. Percy went with her. Voluntarily. So they could stay together. Anyway, they got out, and with the help of Reyna, Nico, Piper, Jason, Hazel, Frank, and Leo they stopped Gaea, beat the giants, and stopped the camps from tearing each other to shreds. It all looked happy for Percy and Annabeth. The day before the attack Percy proposed on the beach, after using his water powers to write her name hundreds of times in the sand. The next day was terrible. I was there. It was just some stupid monster attack. A hydra. It was attacking a new camper. Annabeth was planning on just blowing the thing up with Leo's fire powers. Leo was coming up the hill and everything. But then the stupid hydra knocked the new camper, Noah, I think, unconscious, and Annabeth felt the need to jump in and save him. She had this drakon bone sword, and she would have survived too, had she not tripped over Noah's hand. The hydra poison was shot right into her neck. She didn't stand a chance. Leo burned the hydra to dust just a few seconds after. Percy… Percy had been running up the hill to get to the battle, but he just didn't make it. All he could do was watch Annabeth's final moments. Since then Percy's been… crushed. The words on the beach were written in with his water powers. He just sort of sits there, many days, crying, as the water engraves her name in the sand. We all miss Annabeth. She was the soul and the brain of our camps entire operation. No one but Percy goes down to that beach. Not anymore."

Throughout this whole story, I remained silent. It was long, and I could tell it was missing about a million pieces of Annabeth's life. Truthfully, I felt really bad for having asked. Miranda was crying now. I hugged her, and she smiled a little at me, tears still in her eyes.

"It's almost time for campfire," I whispered. This felt like a time for whispering. "We should go."

So we went.


	2. Heart Dented

This chapter is just purely talking about Percy sadness. I would argue that this giant chunk just on his feelings is both necessary and realistic, so don't judge.

Percy P.O.V.

You feel it coming on. The panic crying. Maybe others know the kind. You desperately wish you could cry for her the right way. The sad, mournful, unselfish way that frees poison from your system instead of injecting it. No, all you can do is panic cry. This kind of crying in which first you start to hyperventilate, breathing in and out deeply, but also far too quickly, your breaths shuddering. And you try not to panic breathe. You try not to begin to sob. But then all you can think is that _She's gone. It's 're here. She's happy. _Somehow, the she's happy part makes you sad, even though it's all you ever wanted for her. _She's happy, and you're still here crying. You're so awful. She's dead._ And you miss it. Desperately miss it. Her being here, her brilliance. You miss fearing every day that this would be the day that she dies, because _you don't have to worry about it anymore. _And that hurts. Physically hurts you, all of the time, every second that you spend picturing exactly what she would say in this situation, exactly what she would think, exactly how her lips would feel when she'd kiss you to shut you up. But what you picture can never _change_, because she's gone, off to eternity, forever age 17, just almost an adult, and she can't even _change _anymore. Not for you. Not for anyone. And unlike people think, you don't feel the guilt they talk about. You don't think, "If only I had been there to save her… if only I had done better." Because you know you couldn't save her. You just couldn't. What's killing you is that's she's gone, and its all just so stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And you know that you can't commit suicide, that you can't do that, to your mom, to your friends, to anyone. And you want someone to see how much you're hurting, to talk to you, to help you. But you shut them out. Because you don't want them to know how much you're hurting, don't want them to react wrong, or have to work to help you. And you know that she wouldn't have wanted this, but she wasn't always right about everything, although she sometimes tried to tell you she was, and besides, she's gone. And you're heart dented, you can feel it. Right on the edge of shattering. And you know it's impossible to make you heart whole again. So all you really want is to just to shatter, to drip down, in a million pieces, with cold tear water. But you can't shatter completely for some reason, so your left agonizingly tense. Heart dented. It will feel so good when you finally shatter. You just hope it happens soon.

And then you stop panic breathing. You release a sob, and tears pour down your face, and you're making crying noises. And you keep crying, you can't stop. But you're still heart dented. You always hope the crying will shatter you, break you into gray paper flakes. Crack you and send you floating into the sky. But it never _does. _And you just feel so much and so little and everything feels like hopeless longing, like _pain. _Eventually the weeping stops, just because it has to. You are quiet for a few moments. Then the panic breathing starts up, and all you can think is no! no! no! Not again.

The water traces her name into the beach. You know it's happening but you never do it on purpose. With it's blue, silvery, dark thread, it carves through the waiting sand. It shows your feelings. The part where you miss how smart she is. The part where you just want her with a childish longing. The part where you think you might just manage to let her go. The part where you realize you can't. The part that loves her. The part that hurts. The part that shows everyone else missing her to. The part that just plain admires her. The practical part that knows you need her for survival, literally. You don't know how you'll make it through the monster attacks without her to tell you what's going on. The part that hurts more. You can't actually read most of it from where you sit, your head crumpled into your knees, especially with your dyslexia. But you know it's her name. You know it.

Writing her name like this helps sometimes. It's repetitive, it's something you can do. It's habit. You did this once to show her you loved her. You do it now because you still do.


End file.
